SAN FRANCISCO, 15 August 2000 - X-Men,
the latest attempt to bring a Marvel Comics property to the screen, was
one of the more high-risk entries in this summer's blockbuster
derby.

The movie had a lot to contend with. For starters, Marvel
has shown little skill in bringing their properties to the screen - the
stylish but sloppy Blade
has been their best so far. And no Marvel character has achieved the
universal familiarity of a Superman or Batman in popular culture, where
the fun is in how each interpretation fills in the details. X-Men
would have to start from scratch, laying out involved exposition for an
ensemble-cast story and still managing to tell a story in its own right.

Further, the moral universe of X-Men is less
clear-cut than that of DC Comics' modern myths, turning on an audacious
if heavy-handed allegory of anti-Semitism. The backstory: Mutants with
extraordinary powers - the next step in human evolution - are born in
increasing numbers in the human population, live among normal humans,
often in secret, and, it is feared, use, or could use, their mysterious
powers to manipulate normals and ultimately achieve their subjugation.
An anti-mutant groundswell builds worldwide - a crusading US Senator
lobbies round the clock for mutant registration laws, images of
internment camps hang in the air. World leaders gather at Ellis Island
seeking a global solution to the mutant question.

In the face of this
hysteria, "evil" mutants, led by concentration-camp survivor
Erik Magnus Lehnsherr ("Magneto"), see a war between humans
and normals as inevitable, and choose to defend themselves against
inferior normals by any means available. (The ethics of this get rather
tangled; if a Holocaust survivor embraces the idea of belonging to a
genetically superior race, well... in this case he may be right; and
experience past and present has left him little reason to hope for
peaceful coexistence.).

The "good" mutants, then,
are those who, on principle, stand in defense of the humanity that
despises them against their fellow mutants. Charles Xavier ('Professor
X'), an immensely powerful telepath, runs a school for "gifted
children", where young mutants learn to manage their powers and
live in peace with humanity. Many graduates, it seems, opt to live in
the closet after graduation, but a few of his best - Scott Summers ("Cyclops"),
Ororo Munroe ("Storm"), and the prosaically named Dr. Jean
Grey - become the X-Men, openly defending mutants in the court of public
opinion, and secretly battling the forces led by Magneto.

Into
this situation stumble two new mutants - teenager Rogue, who drains the
life from anyone she touches (and who can thus "borrow" the powers
of other mutants), and Wolverine, an amnesiac with
miraculous healing powers, a virtually indestructible metal-reinforced
skeleton, and signature razor-sharp claws. These two quickly become the
center of a tug-of-war between Magneto and Professor X, each of whom has
his motives for gathering mutants.

And yet, marshalling all
their powers of storytelling, the intrepid team that brought X-Men
to the screen find a way to pull victory from this difficult material.
Blade taught Marvel a few
lessons: get capable direction, a solid story (Blade's
greatest weakness), and a top-notch cast. What's amazing is that
they get all three, more or less. The team's surprise leader, director
Bryan Singer, was a perfect choice, having already run one great cast
through the tortured story of The Usual Suspects. And as with
Professor X, he may have been the key to assembling the rest of the
team.

As for the cast, headliners Patrick Stewart (as
Professor X) and Sir Ian McKellen (as Magneto) summon their considerable
powers of gravitas to make the whole thing bearable. And if the
supporting mutants are not up to the level of the headliners, all
(except Halle Berry, simply awful as Storm) are adequate. Singer is
smart enough to foreground the two strongest members of the supporting
cast, who also have the most interesting roles in the story - Anna
Paquin, who does a fine job as tormented teen Rogue, and Australian
veteran Hugh Jackman, who captures Wolverine's short fuse and sardonic
wit.

The story is the real miracle here, and the place where
X-Men literally snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Singer
teams with writer Tom DeSanto to build a coherent plot out of difficult
material with far too many characters. Even with that hurdle cleared,
though, X-Men could have fallen apart, but for a last-minute
bold decision to cut the film from 150 minutes to 90. For X-Men,
less was definitely more. Many scenes become telegraphic, and two
jarring lines of dialogue hang oddly in mid-air, but much of the missing
hour was clearly expository material that would have weakened the film's
narrative focus. The scenes trimmed are well-chosen, based on how much
(or little) they contribute to Wolverine and Rogue's story. (And these
two really are the axis of the story - the reception that they receive
from Xavier is the key to understanding his project, and they are both
central to Magneto's nefarious plot.)

Like any good Marvel
superhero, though, the film has its imperfections - here, unfortunately,
they're mostly in the script. Whatever the strength of the story, the
dialogue is uneven; if it only becomes truly awful at one or two
moments, flashes of real wit, even from Wolverine, are rare. The other
surprising let-down is the action - the fight scenes are... ordinary,
never approaching the fever-pitch ballet of Blade,
much less 1999's super-flick The Matrix. Wolverine clashes
adequately with shapeshifter Mystique (supermodel Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
in painted-on blue silicone), but only Ray Park (once Darth Maul, the
one watchable thing in The
Phantom Menace) has real superhuman moves. The inevitable
sequel, which will grow from the great open question of this film - who
is Wolverine, really? - will have to do much better on both counts.
(Suggestions: borrow Blade's
director for the action scenes, and lock him in a room with a print of
The Matrix for a week before turning him loose. And send the
cast to Hong Kong for action training.)

But these weaknesses,
while serious, aren't enough to undo what's right about the movie -
engaging central characters, a solid cast and a plot that leaves
audiences wanting more. X-Men is perhaps better thought of as a
pilot for a series, rather than a standalone feature film. It's far from
perfect, but good enough to win audiences over for now, and good enough
to evolve into a better sequel.

Best moment: Cyclops checks
Wolverine's ID...

C. Antonio
Romero is a writer and engineer based in Silicon Valley. He is the
Nouveau editor of Culturekiosque.com